The present invention relates generally to social networking services and more particularly to providing users, which may include entities such as businesses, the ability to identify information about connections, including interests and relationships, in a social networking service.
Conventionally, users of social networking services establish relationships or connections with other users. Information about these users and their relationships is often self-reported (e.g., information about the user's interests, activities, and the nature of their relationships with other users). Additional information about users and their relationships with other users also may be collected by the social networking service, such as the number, frequency, and directionality of interactions between users and the various types of interactions which may occur between users, just to name a few. Information about users, their relationships, and interests is valuable, both to users of social networking services (including advertisers who may wish to market products using certain viral marketing campaigns that utilize this information) and to administrators of the social networking service wishing to develop a more personalized experience for their users.
While existing methods of aggregating information about users and their relationships in a social networking service provide useful data, users cannot be relied upon to document the full extent of their activities, interests, and nature of their relationships with other users of the social networking service. For example, a user may have one-way or reciprocal connections with different types of users, including individuals, products, brands, celebrities, retail stores, sport teams, community events, social causes, social movements, political campaigns, charities, etc. Users may also have interests in ideas and concepts that extend in scope beyond the social network and the Internet, such as an interest in “watching fireworks” or “Family Guy.” As a user becomes connected with more and more people, concepts, and entities within and outside of a social networking service over time, the user may develop stronger connections with certain people, concepts, and/or entities than with others.
Tools are needed to establish and enhance connections in an abbreviated and user-friendly manner. A user may wish to reference other people, concepts, and/or entities that exist on the social networking service and outside of the social networking service when posting content. Conventional social networking services lack a content upload and delivery mechanism that enables users to easily refer to concepts and other users when posting content for the other users to view, while also aggregating information about the users, their relationships with other users, and the concepts that interest them.